Short Sergies Volume I

When I am finished writing I will have told all of the important parts of my life. I suspect the lies I tell are more interesting than the truth.

Submitted: February 26, 2015

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Submitted: February 26, 2015

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How Not To Create True Believers

Never tell me I am stupid if I don’t believe you. Never tell me I will burn in Hell forever. I won’t believe you, but I will believe you are stupid. Only stupid people fall for
that sort of talk. Is that who you want following you? If you want to scare me into believing something, bring a gun. Be ready to use it. If all you have are threats about
what might happen in the future, or after I am dead, fuck
off.

When It Is Okay To Cheat

When it is like, 102 degrees, and the club pro has already harassed you and your high school golf opponent for playing too slow, even if the reason you were playing slow was that you constantly had
to wait for the group ahead of you. Then, you walk up to your opponent’s ball, and realize it had rolled a couple of feet out of bounds. You couldn’t tell from the tee. You don’t
want to stand there in the blazing heat while he walks all the way back to the tee and hits another shot. You give his ball a good kick and say, “It must have bounced off of something and
rolled back in bounds.”

The End Of The World As We Know It, Part I

The quarterback controversy had raged at the proud football school. Joe, the brother of a former star, was battling against Charlie, a man who had to answer for the color of his skin.
The coach had been alternating the two much of the season. The sad truth was, the team wasn’t that good, and neither of the quarterbacks would qualify as stars.

The two fans who sat below me constantly chanted, “We want Joe!” when Charlie was in the game. They were chanting just that, when Charlie faded back in the pocket and launched a long spiral
down the field. “We want Joe! We want Joe!” Like magic, the wide receiver outjumped the cornerback, and crashed in the end zone with the ball in his hands. The referee
raised his arms. The home team had taken the lead. The gentlemen paused for a moment, then resumed: “We want Charlie! We want Charlie!”

The End Of The World As We Know It, Part II

The college apartment building was brand new. The parking lot was filled with new and late model cars. Out the back window, I could see a dirt road with shabbily constructed
shacks. Many had plastic sheets stapled where windows should be. All the people who lived in the apartment building were the same color as Joe. All the people who lived in the
shacks were the same color as Charlie.

Sometimes people will surprise you. Like the guy who lived below me, who had told me racist jokes, who I’d heard use the N word more than once. A young lady who lived on the street
behind us worked as a maid and cleaned some of the apartments, including his. When he found out she was pregnant, he and his girlfriend had a baby shower at the apartment and their friends
all bought her neat stuff.

Mason Dixon Line

The Alabama fan threw the keys to the Auburn fan. The fake detour had worked. The caravan of Ohio State fans had driven off the road and had immediately got stuck in the mud. The
perpetrators imagined cell phones frantically dialing 911. These folks might make it to the game by the end of the third quarter. The mud will never come out of their clothes. The
two men drove off, in a hurry in their own right. Probably will miss the kickoff. The one in the navy tee shirt didn’t care too much. His team had the week off. He was just
hanging out with his diehard Bama friend. They didn’t agree on much, or very often. But messing with out of staters was a shared birthright.

AFTERWORD

Mostly all of that is true. Except I made up the last one for Dana. No one forced him to move back to Ohio.